Firing mechanism for firearms



J. KOUCKY ETAL FIRING MECHANISM FOR FIREARMS Filed May 23, 1967 March 11, 1969 1 N'AMM WFWHAPQ 7 II,-

INVENTORS. Josef KOUCKY Franhsek KOUCKY 14m. 0% Their Afiorney United States Patent 5 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A firing mechanism for firearms in the form of relatively small-bore rifles adapted to be fired automatically upon repeated actuation of the trigger. The firearm has a pair of parallel pivots which respectively support for turning movement a trigger level and a sear lever, the sear lever having a tooth which engages a tooth of the hammer to hold the latter in its cocked position. A full lever is pivotally carried by the sear lever and extends forwardly therefrom, this pull lever having a catch tooth engaging a catch tooth of the trigger lever, and a spring means extending between the pull lever and the trigger lever to urge them apart from each other, this spring means acting through the pull lever on the sear lever to maintain the latter in engagement with the hammer so as to maintain the latter, cocked while the spring means also acts on the trigger lever to maintain the latter in engagement with a stop surface of the trigger mechanism. When the trigger is actuated by the operator in opposition to the spring means, the trigger pulls forwardly on the pull lever to displace the sear away from the hammer thus releasing the latter for firing the gun, and after the gun is fired a breech block-actuated mechanism raises the pull lever away from the trigger lever so that the sear lever can be placed by the spring means in a position to reengage with the hammer when the latter is returned to its cocked position.

Background of the invention The present invention relates to firearms.

In particular, the present invention relates to firearms in the form of small-bore ball rifles and the like which are used primarily for hunting or sporting purposes.

The invention relates particularly to a firing mechanism for firearms of this type.

While there are a wide variety of known trigger mechanism designs used in modern hunting and sporting rifles of the small bore automatic type, these mechanisms, usually provided with magazines, depend primarily upon the particular characteristics of the particular firearm so as to be constructed in such a way as to enable the separate cartridges to be fired one after the other according to the wishes of the operator.

Difficulties are encountered, however, because of the relatively complex mechanisms which are required by such firearms to be located in an extremely small space while at the same time being of little weight and being highly reliable under difficult operating conditions. All of these latter requirements are seldom fulfilled, so that the known mechanisms are not entirely satisfactory.

Summary of the invention It is accordingly a primary object of the present invention to provide a firing mechanism of the above general type which will fulfill all of the above requirements.

Thus, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide for a firearm of the above type a firing mech- 3,43 1,8 l 9 Patented Mar. 1 1, 1969 anism which is small, light, compact, simple, and at the same time highly reliable in operation.

These latter requirements are fulfilled by the structure of the invention inasmuch as the trigger of the firing mechanism of the invention is pivoted on a pin and is provided with a cutout or recess in which is located the enlarged head end of an elongated pin which forms part of a spring means, this pin having a shank located in a tubular housing which is telescopically movable with respect to the pin and which has distant from the head end of the latter a flange engaging one end of a spring which is coiled about the housing and engages the enlarged head end of the pin, so that the spring urges the telescoped tube along the pin away from the enlarge head end thereof. The end of the telescoped tube which is directed away from the head end of the pin engages a knife edge of a pull lever which is pivoted to a scar lever which coacts with the hammer to hold the latter in its cocked position, and this pull lever itself has a catch tooth coacting with a catch tooth of the trigger lever which is urged by this spring structure into engagement with a stop surface. The trigger lever need only be turned away from the stop surface in order to pull on the pull lever and displace the sear away from the hammer releasing the latter for firing the gun, after which the breech block mechanism is driven back to coact with a break lever to raise the pull lever away from the trigger lever so that in this way the spring means can act on the pull lever to place the sear in a position for reengagement with the hammer during cocking of the latter. Then when the trigger is returned by the spring means into enagement with the stop surface the catch tooth of the trigger re-engages with the catch tooth of the pull lever and the parts are again in a position for firing the gun.

The advantages derived from the structure of the invention reside in particular in the fact that the relatively complex functions which are required to be carried out are reliably performed with an exceedingly simple structure which is highly reliable in its operation, which is very precise and sensitive and which at the same time can be accommodated in a very limited space without any possibility of improper functioning. Furthermore, the breaker bar, the sear, and the pull lever are all acted upon only by a single spring structure.

Brief description of the drawings The invention is illustrated by way of example in the accompanying drawings which form part of this application and in which:

FIG. 1 is a fragmentary longitudinal sectional side view of one possible embodiment of a mechanism according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a top plan view of the structure of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a transverse section taken along line AA of FIG. 1; and

FIG. 4 shows the structure of FIG. 1 at an enlarged scale so as to more clearly illustrate the features of the invention.

Description 07 a preferred embodiment Referring now to the drawings, there is illustrated therein a trigger lever 1 which is supported for turning movement by a stationary pivot 2 carried by the firing mechanism 3. This trigger lever 1 isformed along its upper edge with a recess 4 into which a spring means of the invention extends. This spring means includes an elongated pin 7 having an enlarged head end 5 engaging the trigger in the recess 4 thereof, and this head end 5 is provided with an outwardly directed flange 6. The pin 7 extends into a tube 8 which is telescopically slidable on the shank of the pin 7, and this tube 8 is provided at its top end with an outwardly directed flange 9 which engages one end of a spring 10 which is coiled about the tube 8 and which engages, at its bottom end, the flange 6, so that the compressed spring 10 urges the tube 8 upwardly with respect to the pin 7 and the pin 7 downwardly with respect to the tube 8.

This telescoped tube 8 is situated within a cutout 11 which is formed in a sear lever 12 pivoted on a pin 13 which is parallel to the pin 2, so that the sear lever 12 and the trigger lever 1 are respectively supported for turning movement on the pair of parallel pivots 13 and 2. The scar lever 12 itself carries a pivot pin 17 which is freely turnable on the lever and which is fixed with an elongated pull lever 16 having a downwardly directed knife-edge against which the top end face 14 of the tube 8 is pressed by spring 10. The pivot pin 17 itself terminates in a head end 18 (FIG. 2) which presses against a wall 19 of a side recess 20 which is formed in the firing mechanism 3.

The pull lever 16 terminates at its forward end 21 in a downwardly directed catch tooth 22 which engages a catch tooth 23 formed at the end of an elongated portion 24 of the trigger lever 1. The firearm includes a breaker lever 26 supported on a pivot 27 which is parallel to the pivots 2 and 13 and which also supports the hammer 28 for turning movement. The breaker lever 26 has a rear end which extends beneath the pull lever 16 at its forward portion 21. At its front end the breaker lever 26 terminates in an arm 29 having an inclined surface 30 adapted to be engaged by the breech block 31 which upon firing is driven backward so as to turn the lever 26 in a counter-clockwise direction about the pin 27, as viewed in FIG. 1. The firing hammer 28 is held in its cocked position by a tooth 32 on the arm 33 of the sear lever 12, this tooth 32 engaging the tooth 38 of the hammer 28 so as to maintain the latter in its cocked position. An elongated safety pin 34 is provided for preventing turning of the lever when the safety is in its safety position, and the pin 34 is capable of being displaced to a position where a notch of the safety pin 34 is aligned with the portion 24 of the trigger lever so as to release the latter for turning movement. This trigger lever has a rear projection 35 engaging a stop surface 36 of the firing mechanism 3. The spring means of the invention acts on the trigger lever to urge the latter to turn about the pin 2 in a clockwise direction so as to press the stop portion 35 against the stop surface 36, and at the same time the spring means acts through the pull lever 16 on the sear lever 12 to urge the latter to turn in a clockwise direction about the pin 13, thus maintaining the sear tooth 32 in engagement with the tooth 38 of the hammer 28.

Assuming that the safety mechanism is released so that the firearm can be fired, the operator need only turn the trigger lever 1 in a counter-clockwise direction about the pivot 2 in opposition to the spring means, and this will result in a forward pull exerted on the pull lever 16 through the coaction of the teeth 23 and 21. The result is that the sear 12 is pulled away from the hammer releasing the latter for firing. After the cartridge has been fired the breech block 31 is driven backward and engages the inclined surface 30 of the forward arm 29 of the breaker lever 26 so as to turn the latter to cause its rear arm 25 to raise the pull lever 16 away from the trigger tooth 23, and now the spring means can expand so as to place the sear lever 12 in a position where it will become re-enga-ged with the tooth 38 of the firing hammer 28 when the hammer is again cocked by the rearward movement of the breach 31. This placing of the sear lever in its position for re-engagement with the cocked hammer is brought about by the action of the spring means on the sear lever through pressing of the tube 8 at its top surface 14 against the knife-edge 15 of the pull lever 16, this lever 16 being turned at the pivot 17 with respect to the sear 12 in a counter-clockwise direction as viewed in FIG. 4, so that when the operator releases the trigger the spring means 5-14 will again expand to return the stop portion 35 into engagement with the stop surface 36 and to return the catch tooth 23 of the trigger lever into engagement with the catch 21, the spring means acting at this time to automatically raise the forward portion 21 of the pull lever 16 by the clockwise turning of the trigger. In other words the leverage by which the spring means acts on the trigger lever is greater than that by which it acts on the pull lever 16 so that the stronger force is applied to the trigger lever whose tooth 23 will raise the portion 21 of the pull lever 16 until the parts again have the position shown in the drawing so that they can again be fired.

It is thus apparent that the mechanism of the invention while exceedingly simple and reliable in operation is at the same time very compact and will operate reliably without requiring any expensive components and without undesirably increasing the weight of the firearm.

What is claimed is:

1. In a firearm, a firing mechanism comprising a pair of parallel pivots, a trigger lever pivoted on one of said pivots and a sear lever pivoted on the other of said pivots and having a catch tooth, a hammer pivoted about an axis parallel to said pair of pivots and having a tooth engaged by said tooth of said sear lever to be maintained by the latter in a cocked position, said trigger lever having a free end defining a catch tooth, a pull lever pivoted to said sear lever and having a tooth c0- acting with said catch tooth of said trigger lever, spring means situated between said pull lever and said trigger lever for urging the latter levers apart from each other and to urge said tooth of said sear lever into engagement with said tooth of said hammer to maintain the latter cocked, stop means limiting turning of said trigger lever by said spring means, so that when said trigger lever is turned it will act through said pull lever on said sear lever to displace the latter away from said hammer to release the latter for firing the firearm, and breech blockactuated means responding to firing of the firearm to move said pull lever and its tooth away from said catch tooth of said trigger lever so that said spring means can then expand to a condition placing said sear lever in a position for re-engaging with the tooth of said hammer during cocking of the latter, said spring means acting upon release of the trigger by the operator to return said trigger to a position determined by said stop means and for re-engaging said catch tooth of said trigger lever with said tooth of said pull lever.

2. The combination of claim 1 and wherein said spring means includes an elongated pin having a head erid engaging said trigger lever, a tube in which said pin is telescopically mounted, said tube terminating distant from said head end of said pin in an outwardly directed flange, and a spring surrounding said tube and engaging said head end of said pin and said flange of said tube for urging the latter away from said head of said pin, said pull lever having a substantially knife-edge portion engaging an end of said tube which is directed away from said head end of said pin so that said spring means acts through said tube on said edge of said pull lever, and said edge of said pull lever being situated with respect to the turning axis thereof on said sear lever for displacing said catch tooth of said pull lever toward said catch tooth of said trigger lever.

3. The combination of claim 2 and wherein said breech block-actuated means includes an elongated breaker bar one end of which is engaged by a breech block mechanism during rearward movement of the latter and the other end of which extends beneath a front end of said pull lever for raising the latter away from said catch tooth of said trigger lever upon rearward movement of said breech block mechanism.

4. The combination of claim 3 and wherein said hammer and said breaker bar have a common turning axis.

5. The combination of claim 3 and wherein said sear 6 References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,037,065 4/1936 Burton 89145 2,482,758 9/1949 Gaidos 4269 X 3,167,877 2/1965 Jiingeling 4269 SAMUEL FEINBERG, Primary Examiner.

STEPHEN C. BENTLEY, Assistant Examiner. 

